Double Digits

After waiting for what seemed like forever and a day, I finally got the call from my nurse. Of the nineteen eggs retrieved yesterday, seventeen were mature and TEN have fertilized!!!! We are, of course, thrilled with that number. We were hoping for at least half and we got better than that. The nurse said they are one cell and have pronuclei and are all growing normally. I had no idea what that meant and Googled that shizz with the quickness. Apparently, the appearance of pronuclei is the first sign of successful fertilization. So, very good news! She said as long as things continue to go well we should be looking at a 5 day transfer on Saturday. Joe and I are very excited.

Since I'm no longer stoned from the pain pills I'll give you guys the run down from yesterday. We got up at 5am and left the house by 5:30. We made it to the doctor's office by 6:30 and were the only ones in the waiting room. They took me back pretty quickly, had me change into a hospital gown and got me settled onto my bed. They gave me a warm blanket and had a heating pad on my back and it felt so nice. The nurse asked me some basic questions, took my blood pressure, my temperature and my pulse and put in my IV. After that Joe was allowed to come back and hang out with me. We were just talking and laughing and hanging around when we noticed it was getting kind of late. My procedure was supposed to be at 7am. They were very specific about taking my trigger shot at exactly 7:00pm two days prior so that they would time the retrieval perfectly. Well, 7:05 rolled around and I was still sitting there. We overheard one of the nurses on the phone to the hospital inquiring who the anesthesiologist was that would be coming over for my procedure. We could hear her getting frustrated and being transferred and then telling the doctor that no one was on the schedule to do my anesthesia. At that point Joe was pissed! I was really worried that I was going to ovulate 20 eggs while I was laying there. But, the doctor and the nurse both came in and told us what was happening and told us not to worry which made us feel much better. We joked that the anesthesiologist was going to run through the door like Kramer at any minute.

About 10 minutes later he did arrive. And it was a little Kramer-ish. He didn't have the wild hair or the bad clothes but he did bust through the door very boisterously. Actually, the guy was pretty much a huge douche bag. He was complaining about how he had to get up at 5am and that they pulled him off some other study he was working on... blah, blah, blah. We weren't impressed. Anyway, once he arrived they walked me back to the operating room and had me climb up on the table. They hooked up the blood pressure cuff, had me say my name to the embryologist, the anesthesiologist explained the medication he was going to give me, complained about their oxygen tank being almost empty, complained that my IV was too tight, put the oxygen thing in my nose and started injecting the drugs. The next thing I remember is being wheeled back to my little waiting room and asking how many they got.

When they told me they got 19 eggs I was very excited. I was still groggy so I think I probably asked 5 times. But the nurses were very nice to me and took very good care of me. I was in A LOT of pain immediately after the retrieval. I was actually surprised by how much pain I was in. I had no idea it would hurt that badly. But, they gave me a Darvocet and within 20 minutes I had no pain at all. I had some ginger ale and some crackers and came back to reality. Joe got to see me for a few minutes before they called him out to provide his sample. By the time he came back I was feeling much better and was able to talk to him. He told me that he got to watch the procedure on a little TV they had set up for him in a waiting area. He said he could see them putting the needle into each follicle and sucking it out. He said my huge ovaries kept getting smaller and smaller with every follicle removed. I would be interested in seeing the video but I don't think they offer that service. I actually would've loved to have a video of what was going on during my retrieval. I imagine it being like the operating room scenes you see when a woman is delivering sextuplets or something. They pull one out and get it to the incubator and the doctors work on it while they go in for the next one. I think it'd be kind of neat to see.

We got home yesterday and I went straight to bed. I napped for a little while then layed in bed for a little while longer. I finally got up and to the couch where I stayed for pretty much all of yesterday. The most strenuous thing I did was walk to the mailbox. I continued the Darvocet throughout the day yesterday so I was a little out of it. Today I switched to extra strength Tylenol and it seems to be doing the trick. I am very happy to report that I am officially done with shots! I was assigned the progesterone suppositories instead of the shots. I was thrilled when the nurse told me as I was not looking forward to any more needles.

Now we have to wait and see what happens next. I'll find out for sure on Thursday whether we'll be doing the transfer that day or on Saturday. I'm crossing my fingers for Saturday. We still haven't decided how many we'll transfer back and may not decide until the day of. I'll keep you posted though.